Change Your Image
gianduja
Reviews
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
I've bought my tickets already
I saw TTT at the world premiere on December 5, and I'm STILL excited. If they had strung the film up again after the end credits played, I would have watched it straight through again. I would have watched another hour of story if it had been offered. It was just shy of 3 hours long and it never felt too long. I've gone so far as to purchase the extended version of FotR so I can memorize it since I can't get my TTT fix until the end of this week.
It is fantastic. The film escalates in action, tension, and dread, and rightly so considering it's place in the novel.
Several details are changed in order to compress the events of the book into the film. Several events and details are also changed or added to develop character. There are no gratuitous changes in this film. Even if I don't necessarily agree with the need for such and such changes, I have to admit that they add depth to the FILM version of the story, especially for persons unfamiliar with the novel. Characters that are a little flat and predictable in the novel are given more psychological texture and motivation. Good guys who are 'too' good in the book are a little uneven in the film; they take some time to work out their issues instead of instantly being perfect. This was done in FotR as well in the characterization of Aragorn, and it continues in TTT with more of the characters.
Do not expect this film to mirror the book precisely. If you had a moment of shock and horror when Glorfindel was reinterpreted into Arwen, you will have similar moments with TTT. But, trust me and just go with them. So much happens in every scene that you'll miss something if you stop to think about divergences. I can't wait for the extended version of this one, as certain underdeveloped details will undoubtedly be cleared up in a *gasp* longer version.
And, of course, it is gorgeous to look at.
And here is one massive (sort of) SPOILER for fans of the book.
If you have read the books and know where TTT ends, the film doesn't end in the same place. It ends earlier, and we don't get to Shelob. She is only hinted at. Of course, if they had put her in, the film would have been an hour longer....
In the Bleak Midwinter (1995)
Hamlet as a comedy, what could be better?
I love this film. It is small, and quiet, and it is rather unexpectedly in black and white. It opens like a documentary, and then slips you right into the role of fly on the wall for the rest of the film.
The ensemble is terrific and keep an eye on the facial expressions of the actors who are not actually speaking. A lot of Branagh regulars make welcome appearances. The "look" is wonderfully textured and layered, taking advantage of b/w. Ironically, I prefer many of "Joe's" interpretations of Hamlet to the same scenes in the various film versions I've seen, including Branagh's epic version. Of course, the version they perform is designed for the stage, with a mostly live audience....
My favorite aspect of this film is that it turns a production of Hamlet into a "neo-pseudo-Shakespearean comedy." The parallels between the characters in Hamlet still exist in the players in A Midwinter's Tale. They've been updated and personalized so that Joe's comment that "the play is about loss" works equally well for the film. But, just as almost everyone is dead at the end of a Shakespearean tragedy, everyone is paired up at the end of MT. Of course, as a modern work it can't just end in weddings, but happy endings abound for everyone.
The cleverness of this all is that there is naughty, campy, frivolous humour which hides deep emotional pain, uncertainty, and even tragedy. Anyone who is familiar with Shakespeare's comedies will be familiar with that dark edge which contrasts the joyous romping. Then there are the requisite farcical elements to make the parallel complete.
The only unresolved issues I had at the end of the film/play were "how will Molly handle the fencing scene?" and "how is it possible for Henry to be both Claudius and the Player King?" But I'm not about to gripe about these little points when everything else is tied up so neatly and well.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001)
waiting for it to arrive at a _really_ big screen
It is a very good film adaptation. I've only read the last dozen or so comments, so I don't know if anyone else has mentioned this yet. Tolkien wrote LOTR and intended it to be sold as a single novel. His publishers did not think it would sell otherwise, and therefore had him divide up into three. The reason why the film ends without resolution is because the book ends without resolution. It is an installment.
There is no way to "fix" Fellowship to have a "real" ending because the arc of the story was never written to include sub-conclusions: climaxes to individual events, yes; concluded storylines, no. ALL of the major events culminate in the last book. Tucked in amongst this is the sense of a history immeasurablly more vast than what we know. This history actually exists in Tolkien's writing, and is easily researched if you enjoy reading a scholar's attempt at writing history backwards (skillful, and often brilliant, but so realistic as to be realistically tedious).
We are constantly exposed to the edges and the ends of other people's stories. Whether under Moria or in the woods of Lorien, we are encouraged to recognize the massive scope of history and that history is an interweaving of separate stories into a perceived whole. In this story, the One Ring is the unifier. It brings the disparate storylines together and breaks them apart again.
In epic, history, and real life, massive issues have wide ranging influence. This war of good against ultimate evil is world-shaking, and there is no way that 9 companions riding around the deserts of Mordor can be the only ones affected or responding to Sauron's threat. The companions join and disperse and rejoin and redisperse in new configurations. It is all a very conscious, even stylized, mimicking of an organic process.
With respect to the film, this interweaving of past, present, and future is preserved, if often condensed and truncated by necessity. It really is a very long novel, with diversions which often lead nowhere in particular. I think those who find the characterizations in the novel to be weak are mistaking their simplicity and idealization for lack. Read the Song Roland, or better yet, Beowulf, for the kind of history he drew from.
My problems with the film are primarily about shades of meaning, minor points of characterization. The only one which matters is the scene at the Prancing Pony when Frodo accidently dons the ring. In the book, Frodo is tempted by the ring and succumbs through vanity and pride. The difference is small, but significant, as Frodo should not seem to be always strong against the ring, but rather always struggling. A minor point, when compared to the otherwise very faithful film. Yes, there are issues about class and race in the film as in the novel. Tolkien was emulating an Anglo-Saxon environment (Eomer, Theoden King, etc), as well writing from a British monarchist context as a highly educated academic.
Nonetheless, I loved it. Yes, I would have liked to see more of Frodo's adventurous and Sam's poetic spirits, but too much was already crammed into 3 hours, and there is no way to 'touch' upon everything. Now, if it would just get to that really big screen at that really big theater with the fantastic sound system (if you are in Manhattan, you'll know the one I mean), instead of the 4X6 postage stamp I saw it on at my local multiplex!